In her story “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson attacks social conformity and cultural meaninglessness. Even though stoning someone to death is incredibly inhumane, citizens continue to carry on the tradition in fear of what might happen if the lottery were abolished. Furthermore, the one person who rebels against the lottery, Mrs. Hutchinson, ends up being the one who gets the "honor" of winning the lottery, which indirectly shows that those who rebel against conformity are punished, showing that perhaps the conformity is the right thing to do. The only chance people have to survive and stay safe. In the story, all the citizens gather every year for the "lottery", but instead of winning a prize as some would think, the winner of this lottery is stoned to death. It is made clear early in the story that the lottery is an old tradition, so old that not even the oldest man in town was alive to see the original box from which the names were drawn. This shows that generations in history are not the only ones who, instead of doing what is right, simply do what has always been done. Old Man Warner plays an important role in the story. Although he is the oldest man in town, even he has not seen the origins of the lottery. Furthermore, when people start talking about how other cities have considered abolishing the lottery, he snorts, "A bunch of crazy fools" (Jackson 4), showing that people have become so accustomed to the horrible event that talk about something different. It seems completely foreign and absurd. Old Man Warner even mutters on another occasion, “A bunch of young fools” (Jackson 4) when it is mentioned that some places have actually gotten rid of the lottery, proving that the idea of ​​having no lottery doesn't make any sense. Mob mentality is something that villager...... middle of paper ......d Jackson attacks conformity and meaninglessness by providing a scenario in which social conformity has gone so out of control that the people can easily commit murder, even if they are not sure why they are doing it. Their minds have been changed so much by mob mentality that they really don't know right from wrong. No matter how wrong the tradition seems from the outside, from the inside they are simply following the tradition, and the tradition is never wrong to those who follow it. In other words, the tradition continued simply because they didn't know what they were doing was wrong. Works Cited Coulthard, AR “Jackson's 'The Lottery'”. Explicator 48.3 (1990) 226-228. EBSCO website. March 11, 2014 Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery”. Short stories for students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. vol. 13. Detroit: Gale. eNotes.com. January 2006. Web. 11 March 2014